Evaluation question 7 for my media coursework

1. Looking back at your preliminary
task, what do you think you have
learnt in the progression from it to
the full product?
QUESTION 7

2. The Task
For the preliminary we were asked to film a scene in which a character opening a
door, crossing a room and then sitting on a chair opposite another character in
which they both exchange dialogue. We needed to film and edit this.
We needed to establish three technical elements:
 Action Match
 180 degree rule
 Shot/reverse shot
Our preliminary scene was decided to be a scene between detective Manning and
detective Johnson a few days after the murder of Manning’s former partner, she is
invited round detective Johnson’s home for a seemingly friendly chat however
Johnson interrogates her about what really happened on the night of the murder

3. Cast
 Our cast for our preliminary was our antagonist, Detective Manning as she
will be the main character focus in the film as well as detective Johnson
who is also in this scene
 Charlotte Yates is playing Detective Manning, we felt Charlotte was a
perfect fit for this role as she is in her twenties so relates more to the
audience and has had previous acting experience, however when filming
our main production, charlotte was unable to attend any of our re-shoots
which were crucial, so in result of this Natasha Walsh became our actress,
we need to transfer this when re-shooting the preliminary.
 Neal Addison portrayed detective Johnson although he has no acting
experience, we felt his age and looks would be fitting towards the
character.

4. Use of Mise-en-scene
Setting/Location:
 The location was at my home, as we felt the kitchen was fitting for this
scene.
Mise-en-scene:
 I felt that the costumes could improve, as although Johnson was smartly
dressed, detective Manning was casually dressed. Genre theory suggest
that there isn’t a feeling of time, it is unclear. So I feel she should be
dressed in the same attire as the opening sequence to follow this.
 Props that we used were daily house items such as a kettle, this helped the
feeling that the discussion was seemingly friendly. I do not see this as a
weakness in our preliminary.

5. Use of Technical Skills
 Our action match was created by the knock of the door from the outside and then
on the inside, I felt this was quite smooth and gave continuity between the two
shots. The action match demonstrated the scene of the detective visiting. However
the action match I feel could be improved by either cutting from the detective
answering the door to following the detective into the house or filming the
detective answering the door but from the outside view and then cutting to the
shot of the other detective entering
 180 degree rule – this was not broken and I felt this was done well, this should not
be a weakness when re-filming.
 Shot/reverse shot, this was also another strong point when filming our preliminary
as we kept to this criteria. Due to our target audience being sophisticated similar
shots could be used as they would be more interested in the dialogue and tension
between the two characters than the pace of the shots.

6. Transferring skills from the preliminary
to the main production
 The preliminary gave us a greater idea on how to organise ourselves during
production, it showed that everyone should be given each a role to stick with as this
will cause less time to be wasted and to work more efficiently
 Using the DLSR for filming the preliminary helped us to understand how to use the
camera as it was new to us all and this further helped us decided who was better to be
in charge of the camera
 Furthermore the preliminary made us more aware of continuity, although this was a
strong point in our preliminary there were a few minor errors which could have been
avoided such as the door being open in one shot but shut in the other.